Product Benefits

September 28, 2010

In September 2009, I posted here that I was sceptical about 3D, particularly about 3D TV. By January 2010, fresh from seeing Avatar, I claimed to be converted. Now, a year after my first post on the topic, 3D is making its way into homes around the country.

For me, 3D had to be experienced to be loved. People could tell me how great it was all they wanted, but I couldn’t really grasp it until I had experienced it myself. The same, I would imagine, has been true for many people.

Until this weekend, I had only seen 3D in cinema, not on 3D TV, but on Saturday, I was given the oppurtunity to do so at an event set up for that purpose.

We see experiential marketing all the time, brands looking for extra ways to engage their customers and allow them to interact with the brand. Often, it is done very well indeed, but it’s not so often that we see it in its purest form – experiencing the actualproduct that the company sells.

This was example of a brand understanding exactly what they needed to do and say to reach their customer, making the appropriate investment, and executing it perfectly. We know that the thing that makes a product new and unique from a producer’s point of view might not be what makes it special for their customer. All too often, still, brands start with what’s important to them rather than to their public.

In this case, I was given the opportunity to do the necessary; experience the product and its benefits. I wasn’t told about the technology that allowed it to be brought to me. That wouldn’t have meant anything to me at all. But after experiencing it, I fully understood the benefits it would bring to my television viewing, and there was the win for the advertiser.